Reaching for the Sun

So a little over a week ago, on the last day of my class I challenged them to next paint a lily on a larger piece of paper than they'd been using. The large petals of the lily, especially on a larger paper, call for very different strokes than say the small petals of a zinnia. They kind of force you to loosen up as you make strokes with a bigger brush by bending and extending you arm at the elbow instead of at the wrist or just the fingertips. It's fun! So here's my quick explanation as promised: I tend to fill in the petals working wet on dry, with my brush loaded up with paint and water. Doing it wet on dry as opposed to wet on wet (the way I start my flowers usually) keeps some of the lines from the brush strokes there instead of smoothing them out, which I feel works better for lilies. Just my preference really. Then I use lots of color (no surprises there), and take care to not let shadows on yellow areas turn muddy. Have them glow instead if possible, which isn't really happening in this painting yet but it's not done and the composition is fun and I think it's off to an interesting start. Here's a couple of images you could choose from if you don't have any photos of lilies (click on them to make them bigger, or if you'd like, ask me to email them to you as an attachment):

I didn't include the one I'm painting from because it has terrible coloring and is all washed out. I'm just kind of making it more colorful like it should've been if it'd actually been a good photo. Have fun!